


Hideaways and Lifelines

by writerdragonfly



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Humor, M/M, Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 07:42:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13853166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: It starts with a wrong number. Not the cliched asshole on the other end or the live-happily-ever-after kind of wrong number.Or, at least, not at first.-x-Keith texts the wrong number. There are no regrets.





	Hideaways and Lifelines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissSugarPlum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSugarPlum/gifts).



> There's a lot of set up in this chapter but it should be easier going after this. I am going to reward myself with the new season now, kthnx.
> 
> <3

* * *

#  \- ONE -

* * *

 

 

It starts with a wrong number. Not the cliched asshole on the other end nor the live happily ever after kind of wrong number. 

 

Or, at least, not at first. 

 

The thing is, even at seventeen years old, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. 

 

When he was a kid, back when his dad was still alive, there hadn’t been a need to figure things out on his own. His dad was take-charge-and-get-things-done, the one to take care of him, to feed him and clothe him and the only one to love him. 

 

After he had died, there were no more huevos rancheros at breakfast or beef brisket nachos for supper. There was no walking down the block together after playing baseball at the park to get pecan pie. 

 

After he had died, he lived on a bland mess of boxed meals and canned vegetables. His clothes mostly came out of the charity bin and sometimes his current foster parents would take him to a thrift shop to pick out something more expensive. 

 

All he got to keep from before, before the accident that left Keith an orphan, was a black trash bag full of whatever he’d been able to stuff inside it. Mostly clothes he had long since grown out of. The red and white leather jacket his father had bought him, that had been too big for the longest time. His father’s gloves, from when he went out biking. 

 

His mother’s knife, which he’d had to hide in the secret pocket of his jacket so his foster families wouldn’t take it away. 

 

Going into the system when he was almost a teenager meant that most of his time was shuffled between foster parents who didn’t want to keep him and group homes he really didn’t belong in. 

 

He tried, at first, to carve out a space where he fit. Find someone who reminded him of his dad’s hugs or smelled like sandalwood and dirt and wool. 

 

He wasn’t successful. 

 

The fact was, by the time he joined the Garrison, he wasn’t successful at a lot of things. 

 

But he wanted to be. 

 

Oh, how he wanted to be. 

 

It was hard work, but he busted his ass trying to prove he deserved a chance at being a pilot. That he deserved the scholarship he had studied night after night, week after week for. 

 

_ Attitude Problem  _ and  _ Scholarship Kid _ were the most common descriptors of himself he had heard in other people’s’ murmuring. Years of ignoring the rest of the shitty world had made it easy to ignore. 

 

_ Shiro _ made it easy to ignore, during that brief expanse of time where they were both on campus at the same time. Shiro, preparing for his upcoming mission and Keith learning how to become a pilot. 

 

Shiro was the closest thing to his dad Keith had ever found, even if Dad wasn’t quite the descriptor Keith would have chosen for him. Brother, maybe. 

 

Friend, surely. 

 

But then, Shiro was gone.  _ Presumed dead _ ,  _ pilot error _ . 

 

Never. Not Shiro. 

 

Keith had been in plenty of fights over the years. Orphan, foster kid, scholarship student, any number of reasons. 

 

Nothing compared to the satisfying crunch of his fist against Iverson’s nose though. 

 

Getting kicked out meant losing the scholarship stipend and a place to stay where doors could lock and the water ran clear. 

 

It meant losing three square meals and a place where he felt safe. 

 

There was nowhere left for him anymore. 

 

No one left to take him in. 

 

He thought, briefly, about hitchhiking back to the ranch and asking for a job on the ranch that used to belong to his father but had been given to his employees following a will his father had made long before Keith was born. 

 

But the fact was, it hadn’t been  _ home _ since his father died. Seeing it now, seeing it  _ different _ , would be too much. 

 

So Keith stayed in New Mexico.

 

He was used to being alone. 

 

But he still didn’t know what he was doing. 

 

Searching for Shiro? Certainly. 

 

Keith didn’t know how to take care of himself though, forgotten somewhere in the cracks of the foster system that was supposed to teach him how to stand on his own. 

 

Shiro told him once that if he needed to know something, just to ask him. Shiro wasn't there, not now. But, maybe, someone else could be, just this once.

 

_ Outgoing text to  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Hill, do you know how you’re supposed to cook an egg? _

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ What kind of eggs are you trying to make? _

_ Also, you have the wrong number. I don’t know any hills.  _

 

_ Outgoing text to  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Sorry to bother you.  _

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ No worries, dude. Did you figure out how to make your eggs? _

 

_ Outgoing text to  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ No _

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Well, what kind of eggs did you want? Fried? Scrambled? Boiled? _

 

_ Outgoing text to  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Do any of those last longer? _

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Last longer? Like, for what? In the refrigerator? _

 

_ Outgoing text to  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ I don’t have one _

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ A fridge? _

 

_ Outgoing text to  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Yeah _

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Um, okay. Do you have like an icebox? A cooler? _

 

Keith drops his phone face down on the bed, dust kicking up from the threadbare blanket folded tightly across it. He feels... shame, almost. 

 

Because he’s holed up in some dirty little shack in the middle of fucking nowhere with nothing but his last fifty dollars and he doesn’t even know how to make  _ eggs. _

 

His phone starts chiming again and he sits with his back against the bed for a long time before he picks it up.

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Hey, dude, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to like, make you like humiliated or anything. _

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ If your eggs are farm-fresh, you can keep them out without cooking them for a week or two. Maybe longer if you have a cool cellar or space underground?  _

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ If you’re cooking them, you’ll want to eat them within two hours of being cooked if you can’t refrigerate them. Peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, and most fruit (except berries and cherries) don’t need refrigeration until you cut them or cook them.  _

 

Keith stares at the texts--unasked for as they were--for a long time before he replies.

 

_ Outgoing text to  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Thanks. _

 

He almost doesn’t see the response before he shuts off his phone.

 

_ Incoming text from  _ **_867-53X9_ **

_ Anytime, stranger. _


End file.
